Sex Offenders: Murdered +

MN Sex Offender Program costs $70 million a year but rehabilitates no one

2012-01-31T15:53:00.002-05:00

11-13-2009 Minnesota: By any reasonable standard the Minnesota Sex Offender Program has been an unmitigated failure. In its nearly two decades, it has failed to rehabilitate a single patient. The only people who have graduated from the program have done so in body bags. Since its establishment in 1993, at least 26 patients have died while civilly committed to the program. “It’s like a roach motel,” says Phil Duran, an attorney with OutFront Minnesota, who has been an advocate for individuals committed to the program. “People check in, but they never check out.” Gov. Tim Pawlenty and...

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Patient drowns in pool at RTC

2012-01-31T13:33:00.002-05:00

12-5-2009 Minnesota: ST. PETER — A 40-year old patient at the Minnesota Security Hospital drowned at the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center’s swimming pool on the afternoon of Nov. 24. Police records indicate St. Peter Police received a report a 4:22 p.m. of the drowning by investigators at the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center. A lifeguard on duty informed investigators there were six patients in the pool at the time of the incident when he noticed Richard John Erickson, 40, of Minneapolis, floating near the edge of the pool, which is located in Tomlinson Hall. According to...

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Sex offender dies at commitment center

2012-01-31T13:30:00.000-05:00

4-26-2011 Washington: William A. Harris, who was suspected of being a sexually violent predator, suffered from liver cancer. WALLA WALLA -- A man convicted of child molestation in Walla Walla County and suspected of being a sexually violent predator has died at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island. William A. Harris was being held at the center pending a civil commitment trial that was scheduled to begin in Walla Walla County Superior Court later this year. But the state Attorney General's Office received word April 4 -- Harris' 63rd birthday -- that he had died. His...

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Elderly sex offender dies in civil commitment

2012-01-31T12:58:00.001-05:00

1-8-2010 Wisconsin: A Milwaukee County sex offender who made headlines for multiple bids to leave civil commitment has died in state custody. Robert C. Carney, 80, left, died at the Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center in Mauston on Oct. 27, 2009. according the Juneau County Coroner's office. Sand Ridge officials declined this week to even confirm Carney's death, citing patient privacy laws. Carney was found to be a sexually violent person under Wisconsin law that allows such person to then be committed for treatment after they complete prison terms. In 2004, Carney was deemed fit...

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Deaths of 24 Unnamed Former Offenders

2012-01-31T12:55:00.002-05:00

2-16-2010 Minnesota: While it is not possible to know the names of these offenders, we do know they have died under this law. Taken from "Locked in Limbo - Part-1" is the following: MOOSE LAKE -- In the 14 years since Minnesota's Sexually Dangerous Persons Act cleared the way for the state to detain hundreds of paroled sex offenders in prison-like treatment centers, just 24 men have met what has proved to be the only acceptable standard for release. They died. "We would say, 'Another one completed treatment,'" said Andrew Babcock, a former guard and counselor in the Minnesota Sex...

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Inmate dies after altercation in prison (Civil Commitment Center)

2012-01-31T12:44:00.001-05:00

2-10-2010 Massachusetts: Man Was Serving Sentence For Child Rape BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- Authorities say a man convicted of child rape serving his sentence in the Bridgewater Treatment Center has died following an altercation with another inmate. The Plymouth district attorney's office said in a statement that 47-year-old Joseph Harlow was found unresponsive early Tuesday afternoon following the altercation. He was taken to Morton Hospital in Taunton where he was pronounced dead at about 1:45 p.m. A prisons spokeswoman said Harlow was convicted in 1996 of rape of child under 16 and...

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Civil Commitment Deaths Drawn from Other Sources

2012-01-31T12:41:00.001-05:00

National: The following deaths come from a list kept by "Gulag News" a source which tracks everything with respect to civil commitment issues in California. It appears they publish a newspaper and the last page of that newspaper is an updated list of folks who have died while in civil commitment in either Coalinga (new institution) or Atascadero (old institution). The Jan-Jun 2009 Newspaper shows the following names and dates of deaths:1998-00-00: Robert Cloverdance 1998-06-19: Carl Coleman 1999-00-00: Jim Davis 2000-01-23: Don Lockett (*) 2000-05-10: David...

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Fight ends in suicide attempt, detainee says

2012-01-31T07:27:00.002-05:00

6-5-2004 Florida Sex offender institution under investigation (See story at end of article) DESOTO COUNTY -- A resident of Florida's institution for sexually violent predators was hospitalized after cutting his own neck with a razor blade, a witness to the incident said Friday. The incident came Thursday at the culmination of a series of fights between residents and staffers at the Florida Civil Commitment Center in recent months, according to resident Donald Ivey, 28. Department of Children and Families officials and Rick Harry, the director of the facility for Liberty...

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Sex offenders cite abuses, advocate says

2012-01-31T07:25:00.001-05:00

5-24-2004 Florida: DCF officials say facility within the law The detainees of the Florida Civil Commitment Center near Arcadia complain they live in a rundown former state prison that is infested with rats and spiders. They complain of sewage leaks in their cells and of finding worms in their food. They complain they are denied medical care for ailments ranging from broken bones to heart attacks. They complain they have been abused by staff members and gang members who yell and spit in their faces, or steal their modest possessions, or punish them for not following rules by...

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Former ASH Patient's Death Prompts Review

2012-01-31T07:21:00.001-05:00

12-8-2005 California: Atascadero State Hospital is reviewing the records of a convicted sex offender who died of cancer 10 months after leaving the facility. The review was spurred by the man's attorney, who questioned the quality of the medical treatment her client received. In the letter to ASH Executive Director Melvin Hunter dated Nov. 18, San Bernardino County Public Defender Pamela King asked why ASH doctors conducted a less effective test that never found the colon cancer that killed 69-year-old Eugene Costa in June. According to King's letter, which directly quoted several...

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Civil Commitment Deaths

2012-01-31T07:17:00.001-05:00

The purpose of this entry is to record reported deaths in the Massachusetts Bridgewater State Hospital, which includes both mentally ill patients and Civil Commitees. Hopefully, through further research we can find the names of those that have died and reasons for their deaths, then record just the civil commitment folks. Deaths at a Prison Hospital Lead to Inquiries 7-19-1987 Massachusetts: A series of deaths at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane has touched off a dispute in which correction officials, guards and relatives of inmates are trading accusations....

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A Sexually Violent Predator Killed (Actually a Mental Health Patient)

2012-01-31T07:13:00.001-05:00

This is a highly unusual case of committed mental health person who was forced to move, due to the influx of SVPs from the then NEW civil commitment laws, and as the result of that move this mental health patient died. Maybe this should be called a "Other Death."4-1-1998 California: Craig Black was housed at Atascadero State Hospital while wrestling with the effects of chronic schizophrenia. Mr. Black never actually met a deviant whose violent lust knew no bounds. He died because a sexually violent predator took his bed. For a moment last June, it seemed as if the Supreme Court decision in...

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Civil Detainee's Death Comes Amid Allegations That Coalinga State Hospital Falls Dangerously Short In Medical Care

2012-01-31T07:05:00.004-05:00

11-14-2007 California: Coalinga State Hospital, California's two year old $388 million facility for confining sex offenders after serving their entire prison sentence, is coming under renewed fire in the wake of Thursday's death of patient Frank Valado, age 45. Valado collapsed while playing basketball with other Civil Detainees in the institution's gynmasium Thursday evening. Patients witnessing the incident said that Staff response to Valado's collapse was completely inadequate and that, effectively, he received little or no treatment after being stricken. They reported that an...

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Most Kansas sexual predators don't leave program

2012-01-31T06:57:00.004-05:00

Between 1994 and 2012, 17 folks committed to civil commitment have died.1-30-2012 Kansas: Sexually violent predators who are ordered to a state hospital for treatment after serving prison sentences are almost never released, and Kansas officials say they expect the overcrowded program to continue expanding. The Sexual Predator Treatment Program, which began in 1994, gave prosecutors a place to indefinitely hold convicted sex offenders who are considered too dangerous to release from prison. Instead, prisoners are sent to Larned State Hospital for treatment with the goal of being...

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SMPD officer suspected of sex crimes shot dead by colleagues after resisting arrest

2012-01-29T17:37:00.004-05:00

1-29-2012 California: ‘The definition of a sad day’ In what Santa Maria Police Chief Danny Macagni called “the definition of a sad day,” an on-duty police officer accused of having sex with a 17-year-old girl was shot and killed early Saturday morning by a fellow Santa Maria policeman. The shooting erupted after two of the dead officer’s colleagues tried to arrest him. The accused officer allegedly resisted arrest and fired his handgun, prompting another officer to return the fatal shot. The officer who was killed was a four-year member of the Santa Maria Police Department with no...

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Lawyer accused in neighbor’s fatal stabbing

2012-01-28T01:29:00.004-05:00

8-31-2006 Connecticut: Connecticut attorney suspected of killing over child-molestation suspicions A lawyer climbed through a neighbor’s bedroom window and stabbed him to death after being told by a family member that the man had molested his 2-year-old daughter, authorities say. Barry James, 58, was stabbed in the chest nearly a dozen times Monday. The lawyer, Jonathon Edington, 29, was charged with murder and burglary and was released on $1 million bail Wednesday. Capt. Gary MacNamara said that police had not received a complaint about the child being assaulted before the...

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Police: Killer accused man of molestation, gunned him down

2012-01-26T17:13:00.006-05:00

1-26-2012 Washington: A Des Moines man accused of killing a man after accusing him of molesting children has been charged with murder. King County prosecutors contend Denzil R. Moore shot Thomas R. Humphries at point-blank range during an argument inside Moore’s pickup truck on Jan. 10. The Des Moines man and a purported accomplice are alleged to have then dumped Humphries’ body at a vacant house in Auburn, where it lay undiscovered for days. “Moore effectively executed a man,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Don Raz told the court. Moore, 41, has threatened to kill others who know the...

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Sex offenders are easy prey for vigilantes

2012-01-26T10:23:00.000-05:00

4-24-2006 Connecticut: To find convicted sex offenders in your neighborhood, all you need is a computer with Internet access. That's also all it takes for vigilantes to hunt down these offenders. That's what happened this month in Maine, where 20-year-old Stephen A. Marshall shot and killed two registered sex offenders whose addresses he found on the state's on-line registry. Marshall then took a bus to Boston and shot himself to death as police officers were approaching to apprehend him. This wasn't the first time a vigilante used a registry to find and kill sex offenders. Last...

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DA: Man plotted to burn down sex offenders' home

2012-01-26T09:48:00.000-05:00

Updated: 4-24-2007 9-20-2006 New York: A Mastic man pleaded not guilty to attempted-murder charges Wednesday in an alleged plot to burn down a house where four Level 3 sex offenders lived, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said. Spota said police detectives, acting on a tip earlier this month, sent an undercover officer to befriend Donald Keegan, a county employee and part-time landscaper who lives less than a mile from the home he planned to torch on Eleanor Avenue. The officer used a hidden camera with audio to tape Keegan, 36, in the backyard of the target home. "I'm...

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Man defends attacks on sex offenders: Crusader gets jail term

2012-01-26T09:38:00.000-05:00

12-5-2004 New Hampshire: CONCORD, N.H. -- Lawrence Trant sees himself as a righteous crusader who put muscle behind his boiling outrage against pedophiles. The state of New Hampshire sees Trant differently. He is serving a 10- to 30-year sentence in New Hampshire State Prison after pleading guilty to attempting to murder two convicted sex offenders whose names and addresses he found on an Internet registry posted by the state. "I don't want people to steal the souls of little kids," Trant, 57, said in an interview in prison last week. "I'm doing 30 years for something I think is...

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Most Serious Vigilantism Cases: Murder, Attempted Murder, Brutalization, Arson, often locating target using Registry or Community Notification Information

2012-01-26T00:31:00.008-05:00

Any Date, Any State: DATE of LAST ADDITION to LIST: 1-27-2012 These are the more serious cases and some where the registry or community notification information was used, by the perpetrator, to commit his/her deeds and harm the person who is the object of the story. While I am sure there are other cases, in these there is no doubt they are the most serious short of out-right murders; the rest of this blog documents them. This list will be update as we find more, so stop back for the then current version. In addition, there are hundreds of cases of vigilantism in the Vigilantism...

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No Bond For CA Man Steven Banister In Murder Of Sex Offender

2012-01-25T01:51:00.002-05:00

1-10-2010 California: A judge Monday denied bail for a self-avowed white supremacist accused of using California's Megan's Law registry to track down and kill a convicted sex offender at his North Palm Springs home last summer. Steven Banister, 28, of Desert Hot Springs is charged with first-degree murder in the Aug. 10 death of Edward Vaughn Keeley, whose body was found in his back yard in the 64-000 block of 16th Avenue. Banister also faces two special circumstance allegations of committing a murder during a robbery and a burglary, which would make him eligible for the death...

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Threats of Violence as Homes for Sex Offenders Cluster in Suffolk

2012-01-25T01:10:00.003-05:00

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A vigilantes' charter? The bitter legacy of Megan's Law

2012-01-25T00:57:00.001-05:00

6-24-2006 Maine: In the ten years since American states were forced to publish the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders, there have been a series of vigilante attacks. As John Reid considers a similar approach in Britain, Andrew Buncombe reports on a law which has had unforeseen consequences The mother of William Elliott insists her son was 19 and his girlfriend just two weeks shy of her 16th birthday when the couple had sex - behaviour about which people may have differing opinions, but which in the state of Maine was enough to earn him a conviction for statutory rape. The...

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Prison death of sex offenders' killer is investigated as a suicide

2012-01-25T00:27:00.001-05:00

4-24-2007 Washington: In a letter sent to The Seattle Times a few months before his death, convicted sex-offender killer Michael Mullen wrote that during his arrest and trial, "facts are, I just wanted to die." Mullen was serving a 44-year prison term after being convicted of killing two Bellingham sex offenders in what was considered one of the nation's worst cases of vigilantism against sex offenders. Mullen was found unresponsive in his cell at Stafford Creek Corrections Center near Aberdeen on April 15, and declared dead at Grays Harbor Community Hospital. The state Department...

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